* Tim Kaine: Someone must have told the Virginia senator he needed to always be on his front foot in the debate, always be the aggressor. It didn't work. Kaine started the debate talking so quickly and trying to load so many Trump attacks into every answer that it made it virtually impossible to grasp any one attack. In the middle of the debate, Kaine seemed to relax into it -- delivering an effective attack on Trump's comments on women. But, that Kaine was the exception, not the rule. When he wasn't trying to stuff 10 pounds of attack in a five pound bag in his answers, he was relentlessly interrupting Pence.  Every single time Pence started to level an attack against Clinton, Kaine immediately began to talk over him. I'm not sure if that was on purpose or not but it didn't come across well — at all. One glaring example: As Pence was recounting his personal experience on Sept. 11, 2001, Kaine interrupted to say "I was in Virginia." Um, ok. Not a good look.

* Elaine Quijano: I root like hell for the moderators in these debates because they have a next-to-impossible job. But, Quijano lost control of the debate within minutes of it starting and never really got it back. She seemed to dole out 20 seconds here and 30 seconds there for Pence or Kaine or both to respond to each other with no rhyme or reason. She never was able to get Kaine or Pence to, well, stop talking. Then there was the fact that she didn't seem to follow the flow of the debate; Kaine and Pence would be feuding about, say, tax returns and Quijano, after getting the two men to stop talking, would say something like "Let's talk about North Korea."

Watch a video of the many interruptions here

* The American public: I am not big on declaring that this or that thing was bad for the electoral process and/or democracy. After all, America has weathered a hell of a lot in our time as a nation. But, holy cow, was that debate a) hard to watch and b) super depressing. Constant interruptions — especially by Kaine. A total refusal to answer questions. Unsubstantiated statements galore — especially by Pence. I found myself wishing it was over around 10 p.m. — and I love this stuff more than anyone I know. What must the average voter have been thinking?

Republican National Committee press office: Ninety minutes before the debate actually started, the RNC posted — presumably accidentally — a blog post declaring Pence the winner. Of course they were going to declare him the winner no matter what but watching how the sausage gets made is never the sort of thing people like to do.

* The debate stage background (again): Look. Am I the only one who finds the Declaration of Independence — in cursive no less! — behind the two candidates's heads as they debate distracting?  I can't be the only one.  I take it as my personal mission to rid the debate stage of this blight before the final two debates commence.

Much more analysis on The Fix, including an annotated transcript of the whole thing.

The end. (REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst)